Look To The Stars
by IchigoTango
Summary: Ryou Bakura's only known world is pain. His friends worry about him and all of the different bruises he comes to school with. A new bruise, a new excuse. Rated for later content and swearing, etc.


My first YGO fic in forever. Requested of me by Neon Worm. Well, not the topic but the pairing. X3 In any case, if this turns out as horrible as 'Cold Hearted Killer' : kick me. HARD. I deserve it. XD By the way, Joey says "Yuge", that's the way it's spelled on my game so, even though it looks like something that would rhyme with Huge, it's not. It's better than writing 'Yug' and making it look like it rhymes with 'Jug'. 8D

**Warning:** Abuse, foul language and possible character death.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any YGO characters, or anything from the anime, manga, etc.

Marik is the yami.

Malik is the hikari.

/blah/ Light to Dark

//blah// Dark to Light

_Italics-_ Thinking to oneself without dark/light hearing

Hikari- Light

Yami- Dark

Look to The Stars

* * *

Ch.1

_Disagreement_

By: BishieBurgersAreYummy

_The rain beat against the windows, pouring down in a watery torrent of rage. The screaming echoed throughout the house resting in innocent ears. They were having another disagreement. Another day full of hateful words washing through a once pure mind. Pictures flood the teen's mind; images clouded by blinding despair. A slap of skin on skin echoed through the house, followed by eerie silence. For now, it was over; but tomorrow it would begin anew._

An alarm clock sounded, waking the sleeping teen. A hand blindly swung out to shut off the offending noise, knocking multiple objects off of the nightstand and onto the floor before actually acheiving its goal. Chocolate brown eyes slowly opened as a yawn escaped the fragile boy's mouth.

It was early Monday morning. The sun hadn't even thought of showing itself above the horizon yet, nor would it do so for another two hours or so. Ryou Bakura ruffled his silvery white hair as he stretched and slipped his feet into his slippers. He stood, flinching slighty in pain as he attempted to rest his weight on his aching legs. Sighing deeply, he began to make his way quietly to the bathroom down the hallway.

The boy quietly closed the door, careful not to make any noise. He would hate to wake his Dark, especially at this hour. Ryou brushed a few stray strands of hair out of his face before looking grudgingly into the mirror. The image that was reflected back at him was repulsive to the boy, especially with the darkening bruise around his left eye.

"How shall I explain this...?" he muttered quietly to the empty bathroom.

Dismissing the subject for the time being, he removed his sleeping garments, letting them drop soundlessly to the floor beneath him before stepping carefully to the shower and turning it on. Steam rose instantly from the water warming the cooler air within the bathroom. Ryou always enjoyed his showers as they seemed to take away the pain, even if only for a moment.

A sigh of contentment slipped through his slightly parted lips as the water ran soothingly down his pale body, wetting his silvery hair. The boy took the bottle of shampoo and squeezed a fair amount into his palm before lathering it generously in his hair. He massaged the shampoo into his scalp, trying to will away the remnant of the headache he still had from the previous night. Ryou rinsed the soap from his hair and washed his body. A soft whine escaped his lips; he hated the end of his showers. They were always so relaxing...

Another sigh escaped the boy as he turned off the shower and stepped silently onto the bath mat. He wrapped a towel loosely around his waist before picking up his clothes and tip-toeing back to his bedroom. He still had another couple of hours before he had to be at school, so he merely flopped onto the bed and closed his chocolate brown eyes, enjoying the silence. If only the stillness of morning and night could be held throughout the day aswell...

Ryou forced himself to sit up and get changed. He pulled out his school uniform and put it on, tucking in his shirt. He looked into the body mirror with a look of utmost disgust before snatching the towel and drying his hair angrily. Tears, hot with frustration, began to roll slowly down his pale cheeks, only further highlighting the fact that his eye was, indeed, bruised. After a few moments of vigorously drying his hair, he tossed the towel across the room, knocking a few objects off of his desk as he did so. He winced, frightened, as the items fell noisily to the hardwood floor, the clatter ringing forbodingly in the silent stillness of morning. Ryou remained tense as he heard a low grumble from the room next to his and instantly knew his day would not go well.

"Ryou..." The familiar, husky voice of his Dark growled from the door. "What the fuck... do you think you're doing?!"

The teen shivered, fear coursing through every vein in his body. "G-getting ready for s-school, Yami..." he stuttered quietly.

It took a moment for the Dark to respond. His head was swimming with what would later become a massive hangover and his brain was way to groggy to think any faster. "Do you know what I do to people who wake me up this early in the morning?" he asked menacingly, teeth clenched and eyes glowering at the teen.

Ryou swallowed nervously, shaking his head a small fraction, indicating he didn't. A growl escaped his still-drunk Yami. "I asked you a question." He demanded, his voice hoarse; probably a result of jeering with Marik all night.

"N-no." Ryou said all too quickly. "I-I don't know... what you do..." His voice was nearly inaudible. An amused look flashed over Bakura's face, followed by a deep, growling laugh.

"I guess I should show you then, Hikari." he replied menacingly, taking a rather large step forward.

Ryou shivered and bit his bottom lip. The teen knew that showing fear was what kept his yami going, but there was no way he could hide it from him. His eyes were shut tight, his fists were clenched and his entire body was stiff. For a second, a split second, he imagined running away and never looking back, but he had no one else. Bakura was the only one he had left...

"I..I need to go to school, yami..." he said in the bravest voice he could muster. The slight squeak in his voice caused his Yami to chuckle darkly.

"That you do... You're just damn lucky I'm still tired." he growled before turning and heading back to his room, slamming the door. Ryou gasped softly, just realizing that he had held his breath for most of their rather short-lived conversation. He allowed his chest to heave up and down in a futile attempt at returning the oxygen to his lungs. After recollecting his nerves, he stood and retrieved his schoolbag which had laid forgotton on the edge of the bed a few minutes prior. Taking quiet, mouse-like steps, Ryou headed down the staircase and to the doorway where he swiftly put his shoes on. The teen checked to see if he had everything before swinging his backpack onto his shoulder and exiting the house as quietly as possible.

The boy allowed the wisps of snowy hair to fall in front of his face in hopes of hiding the rather large shiner he was currently sporting as he walked down the barren streets. No one was awake this early in the morning, no one he knew anyway, so he was rather shocked when a voice called out to him.

"Ryou!" He recognized Joey's voice instantly. The blonde's voice seemed to trip over the syllables of Ryou's name for the simple fact that his accent seemingly wouldn't allow him to say it.

Ryou was startled at first and turned around slowly to look at the one summoning him. "Hello Joey." he said kindly, the soft British accent rolling off his tongue with ease. Though he commenced in greeting the blonde, he refused to look at him; the less he knew, the better. Seeing as his gaze was fixed stubbornly on the ground, he didn't notice that Joey wasn't alone.

"What, do I suddenly got three heads or somethin'?" Ryou jumped slightly before staring wide-eyed into the dark eyes of Tristan Taylor. Seemingly forgetting about his bruise for the moment, he greeted Tristan with a smile.

"I'm sorry Tristan, I didn't see you there." he said politely, bowing in apology.

"Woah- ho! Where'd you get that shiner, Ryou? You been fightin'?" he asked, tilting the teen's head up.

Ryou shook his head vigorously, shrinking away from Tristan's touch. "N-no! No I haven't I just... had an accident. It's kind of embarrasing... I'd rather not talk about it." He was slightly surprised with how easily the lie slipped off of his tongue. He wasn't used to lying and thusly wasn't very good at it when he tried.

Tristan gave Joey a small questioning look and recieved a shrug as an answer. "Hey, we're meetin' up with Yuge soon. Yuh wanna walk wit' us?" Joey offered as a subject changer.

Ryou shook his head slightly, flashing a grateful look. "No thank you, I'd like to get to school early today." he said with a smile before turning and beginning to walk towards the school. Domino High was just a twenty minute walk from his house, a quiet one at that. The teen greatly appreciated any moment of peace he could get and he savoured the feeling.

Ryou got to school way before anyone else, which was usual, of course. He normally arrived at the school when the janitor did, so they were used to seeing eachother in the mornings.

"Morning Ryou!" The Janitor called cheerily from the front door. Ryou nodded in aknowledgement and muttered a quick "Hello" before walking quickly past him and into the school.

Without a second thought, he went to the bathroom to examine his eye, which was still prominently black. His heart sank as all hopes of remaining inconspicuous for the entire day washed mercilessly down the drain. In a futile attempt to cover up his black eye, he messed his hair around a little. He had tried countless times, though each time he was only successful in making himself look like he was dragged through the bush backwards. No matter how many different ways he moved his hair, he had no luck whatsoever with hiding his shiner. Down-hearted, moody and frustrated, he gave up and left the bathroom with his backpack draped lazily over one shoulder.

Ryou was too busy trying to hide his bruise to notice how long he was actually in the bathroom for. It had to have been at least a half an hour or so, because the school was now filled with chattering teens talking about a range of things from last night's football game to how cute one's shoes are. In either case, Ryou wasn't paying much attention to them and merely continued on his gloomy way to his first class: Gym.

The teen didn't normally mind gym class, having become rather used to the teacher telling him to get his hair cut every day. He didn't even mind the twenty laps said teacher assigned every morning but, today, he just wished he could disappear. With his head bowed the entire time, the gloomy Ryou went to the changeroom to change.

"Hey, Ryou!" he heard Yugi's familiar call from behind him.

Again, his heart sank with sudden realisation. Yugi was in every one of his classes today, which would prove difficult to keep his face hidden. His plan was to walk with his head down all day, but that was difficult to do when being talked to.

"Ryou?" Noticing that he hadn't responded, he jumped and looked to Yugi, smiling.

"Hello Yugi. I'm so sorry, I was just caught in my thoughts." he said apologetically. Of course, Yugi was never one to miss the details that he _wasn't _supposedto get and he noticed Ryou's black eye instantly.

"What happened?!" He asked, worry flitting across his face.

The teen shook his head dismissively. "It's nothing."

"No, it's not nothing, what happened?" Oh yes. Yugi didn't know how to let something such as this go, and always had to know _exactly_ what happened.

"It's rather embarassing, really. I'd rather not talk about it." Ryou said, attempting to illude Yugi like he had Joey and Tristan. Apparently, Yugi wasn't so easily satisfied, for he placed his hands on his hips and gave Ryou a surprisingly mother-like look.

"Ryou... _What Happened_?" he demanded in the ever familiar 'Tell me or I won't leave you alone' voice.

The teen sighed and finished changing thankful for the fact that the changeroom was now full of conflicting hormones and was getting rather loud. Ryou gave Yugi an apologetic look again before leaving the changeroom and going into the gym. As expected, he was greeted with a rather red-faced gym teacher who was somehow already sweating before the class even began.

"Ryou! Did I not tell you to get that hair cut?! I teach a BOY'S class not a GIRL'S!!" His gym teacher yelled as soon as Ryou stepped foot in the room.

"Morning, sir." Ryou greeted with a nod. It was the morning routine: Ryou would come in, the teacher would bag at him about looking like a girl, Ryou would say good morning and the day would just move on.

Ryou sat down on the bench and waited for the other boys to come in from the changeroom. Normally, the gym teacher wouldn't bother the teen unless he wasn't doing anything but, this morning, he had noticed Ryou's bruised eye.

"Ryou Bakura, what happened to your eye?"

Ryou flinched slightly and attempted to look at the teacher through his hair, head still slightly bowed. "Nothing sir..." he muttered, already getting tired of people asking what happened. Of course, Ryou wasn't about to tell them no matter what kind of authority they had over him.

The teacher gave a breif nod and dismissed the subject, giving Ryou a sudden respect for the man. Gym went normally, with the acception of Yugi's nagging. Ryou, being as pleasant as he was, couldn't simply tell Yugi to leave him alone and depended on concentrating on his twenty laps. Of course, class wouldn't be taken up by just laps and, after sprinting them all, they had to go through football drills. Ryou, for obvious reasons, didn't much like this sport and it showed. He sat down by Yugi and sighed, a look of panic showing in his eyes. The two sat together amongst the group of chortling boys and awaited their teacher's instruction. Their teacher worked in odd ways. An example of such would be the fact that he always waited until his students were _done_ doing laps to set up for the activities taking place afterwords. This, obviously, gave the teenage boy's enough time to get their testosterone in a jumble and fight with the closest male to them. Funny enough, it often reminded Ryou of the many nature shows he had watched in which the males normally fought for territorial purposes.

It took probably ten minutes for the teacher to finish setting up and the teen's classmates took advantage of that time and, as if upon natural instinct, tackled eachother with the like of wild buffalo fighting over game in winter. An additional five minutes was wasted on trying to get the conflicting animals to settle down long enough to listen to instruction, which was short, sweet and to the point. They were to get the ball, run as fast as they could while dodging their most likely sweaty opponents who were lunging at them with all of their might. Simple enough in the eyes of a barbarian, but not in the eyes of the frail teenage boy, who was already sore enough to begin with. Ryou was smaller than every boy in there, with the acception of Yugi of course, and disliked bodily contact of any sort. Especially if it meant being tackled by an overgrown, sweaty and muscled 'air-head' and getting more than the wind knocked out of him.

The class went in painfully slow succession and, by the end of the game, Ryou had been tackled by at least five people which, to him, felt like fifty. He _knew_ he was going to be stiff and sore by the end of the day and wasn't particularly happy with the bruise forming on his left forearm. The one thing he _was_ happy about was the fact that Yugi was too busy trying not to get trampled to ask him any more about his eye.

They had a ten minute break between first and second period, and Ryou decided to take advantage of this time. After he put his gym change in his locker and got his books, he all but ran to the bathroom to see how his eye looked. He already thought it couldn't get worse, but what he thought was now proven wrong. The bruise was turning a rather dark purple-like colour, and his eye had decided to choose now to get puffy. With a rather loud, dramatic groan, he exited the bathroom and stormed to Science class.

Ryou somehow had enough luck to make it into the classroom two seconds before the bell rang, which he was thankful for. He had a perfect attendance, having only been excused from classes twice in all of highschool. Mrs.Yukiwa, his Science teacher, was normally rather lenient when it came to late assignments and such but if anyone was ever late for her class, they had better be prepared for hours of detention.

Ryou rushed in and sat in his seat as quick as he could. He nodded in apology as he took out his textbook and binder, scribbling the date in amazingly neat, scrolling writing. He began to write his notes instantly, searching for any reason to not talk about his face. He had received concerned looks from most of the girls in class, especially Tea. A conversation with her is one he _definately_ wanted to avoid.

Mrs.Yukiwa talked all about movement and how to measure distance. Ryou took notes on the formulas and other such things he thought he would have difficulty remembering.

"You need to times 'D' by 'T' and divide it by---Malik Ishtar, what do you think you are doing?" She chimed, voice high and obviously angry.

"Walking into your class twenty minutes late ma'am." He answered with a smug smirk playing across his lips. Now, everyone in that classroom knew that was the wrong thing to be saying, as did Malik, but he didn't much care either way.

"Detention, lunch time. You will bring your lunch here and sit quietly, no buts. If you go home for lunch, I will supply you with a granola bar. Take your seat and do not further interrupt my class." She said so with a stern, yet elegant voice. Not even Malik would deny listening to her, especially sounding as dangerous as she did. He took his seat with no further comments and opened his notebook.

Ryou smiled slightly at Malik's attempt at humor before continuing with his notes. The one thing he hated about new units was the four pages of notes (all double-sided) that went with them.

o0o0o0o

The sun shone brightly through a crack in the blinds. Bakura stirred slightly before opening painful, bloodshot eyes. A string of obscenities slipped through dry lips as the hungover yami sat up in his bed. He rubbed his eyes lazily, yawning widely in the process, before shooting an angry glare at the alarm clock beside his bed. Yet another string of curses left Bakura's mouth after his brain finally registered the fact that it was only 11am.

He flopped grumpily back on the bed realising instantly, with a flip of his stomach, that it wasn't necessarily a great idea. The world spun around a couple of times before a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His breaths came in small gasps in attempts to keep himself from getting sick. After ten minutes of what felt like hell, his stomach decided to settle and leave him alone for the time being.

Bakura waited for a good twenty minutes before deciding to attempt to sit back up again, being smart enough to do it slower this time. Once he finally made it into something that resembled a somewhat sitting position, he glared defiantly towards his stomach in a way that seemed to boast that the contents of said stomach had remained obediently where they should be.

Bakura stood and slumped down the hallway and to the bathroom. He stared into the mirror, glaring at his reflection, before splashing his face with cold water. He leaned on the counter, resting his throbbing head on his arm.

"I fuckin' hate mornings..." he growled before finishing his business.

Bakura wandered into the kitchen to look for food and stop his stomach from attempting to eat itself. He opened the fridge and found last night's leftovers neatly wrapped on the top shelf waiting for him. Ryou always made supper for them both, even though he knew his yami wouldn't be home until at least 3am.

"Stupid boy..." Bakura muttered before snatching the food from the fridge and all but throwing it into the microwave.

o0o0o0o

Science had went in a blurr and Ryou found himself wandering, once again, to the bathroom. It was now lunch time so he didn't have to worry about being late for any classes. Although, he _did_ need to worry about running into Yugi and his friends. A soft, feeble sigh escaped the boy's lips as he looked into the bathroom mirror. The bruise had somehow managed to get darker than it was before science, if that was even possible. With a resounding groan, the teen left the bathroom and went to the cafeteria to get lunch.

It was just his luck that the cafeteria was packed full of chattering teens, and was often a very hot place to 'hang out'. Of course, that was nothing compared to the wide-eyed stares and blunt pointing he received the second he entered the place. He bowed his head and walked silently past them, focussing on pretending they didn't exist at all. Unfortunately for the teen, the fact that he was staring straight at the ground made it a lot harder to avoid running into people, and thus he got multiple cussing teens threatening the well being of his immediate person. His heart fell as soon as he made it to the cafeteria line, for Yugi had spotted him and was currently waving at him in an all too jovial way which suggested an unmistakable feeling of impending doom. In all of the teen's bad luck, Tea was sitting with Yugi and didn't look the slightest bit pleased with Ryou's 'injury'. He allowed a feeble smile before grabbing his lunch and making his way towards Yugi's table.

Tristan and Joey had made it there before him with their bagged lunches and identical sour expressions. After putting all of the factors together, Ryou came up with a solution: Today was 'Tuna day'. The explaination: Joey's dad (being the drunken slob he was) had amazingly picked up a woman (at what Ryou assumed to be the local strip club), brought her home and was currently housing her with the conditions that she would soon be Joeys 'new mother'. Said 'new mother' had put her own rules into play, such as Tuna every Wednesday, as well as every odd day if she was feeling particularly lazy. Said stripper had somehow met with Tristan's parents, shared the idea, and miraculously fit her little 'rule' into Joey's best friend's lunch schedule as well. Neither of the two teens liked 'dad's new girlfriend' and for what would appear to be a good reason.

"Hi guys." Ryou greeted with a sympathetic shrug towards the two sour-hearted teens. He recieved a mumble of recognition in response as he sat down with his friends.

Yugi grinned in an innocent way, subtly suggesting that he had either given up on asking Ryou what happened, or the fact that he knew Tea would nag the hell out of the poor British boy until he finally gave in. As expected, the poor teen was greeted with an instant attack on his eye as words of concern spilled frantically from the brunette's lips. Ryou lost interest somewhere along the lines of her speech, probably the very beginning, and decided to laugh the subject off with a wave of his hand.

"It's nothing. Honest." Ryou said, still laughing lightly. Tea's jaw dropped and had it not been for the laws of physics or something of the scientific like, would have hit the floor.

"W-what? Are you trying to tell me that when a friend gets hurt, it's not supposed to matter to me? I don't know if you've noticed, Ryou, but friends should always stick by eachother and therefore---"

In all seriousness, the only thing Ryou heard after that point was "Blah blah blah blab blah bleh." He shook his head slightly, still maintaining what he hoped was a nonchalant approach to things, and smiled brightly.

"You worry too much, Tea. In all honesty I woke up in the morning (still tired from my night of studying) with all intentions of getting something to eat. As I mentioned, I was tired, and the freezer door ended up making contact with my face." As bizarre as his story sounded to himself, his friends must have believed it for they broke out into wild laughter after the moment of shock had worn off.

"Ryou, you little clutz!" Joey laughed, holding his stomach. "Ya got me all worried an' all that happ'nd was a slight mishap with a fridge?" The laughter continued on while Ryou forced his smile to remain on his face. Today was still going to be a long day...

o0o0o0o

"Fucking T.V.! Nothing's ever on!" Bakura growled in frustration as his channel surfing proved absolutely pointless. There was nothing on, unless he intended on watching the re-run of yesterday's church recital. There was nothing in the world that could make Bakura do that and, seeing as the church program was currently the only channel sporting anything _close_ to interesting, said Yami turned off the TV by oh so brilliantly throwing the remote at it. Satisfied with the fact that he had just created a rather large hole the offending TV, Bakura stood up (with much effort) and wandered back to his fridge.

"Nnn... of _course_ there would be nothing..." he grumbled, looking for something that just might offer relief to his still throbbing headache. At that moment, as if the Gods had planned something of the like, a glimmer of silver caught his eye. Could it be...? Bakura pushed aside the other objects in the fridge (which wasn't much) and found, with a skip of his heart, a solitary can of beer. Now Bakura was nowhere near being a cheap drunk, and this one beer would do nothing more than settle the craving ache in his stomach (for the moment anyway). Without a second wasted, he grabbed the can, cracked it open and guzzled it in all of five seconds. The very second he finished the beer the phone rang, causing a small grumble to escape his lips.

"Damn phone just ruined my moment..." he muttered as he picked up the receiver.

"What do you want?" he demanded.Rather harsh way to answer the phone, yes... but not unordinary. He was greeted with a small laugh.

"Ahh Bakura... is that _really_ the way to greet a friend?" The voice carried an almost deep yet alluring tone, and could belong to only one person...

"Marik..." Bakura sighed with a small shake of his head.

"Mmmn... I knew you wouldn't forget." Marik's voice was husky and still held a slight slurr; remnant of the drinking last night.

Bakura flashed an incredulous look to the kitchen. Of course he wouldn't forget, he seen the blonde every damn night! "You're stupid." he stated simply.

"Awhhh come on... you don't mean that."

"I think I do."

There was a moment of silence. "You coming out with us tonight? We're leaving in a half hour."

For once in his entire life, Bakura found himself wanting to stay home. He had no intention of leaving the house up to this point, which was an oddity in itself, and he still didn't even _after_ being invited. "I'll pass."

Silence had fallen upon the two again and, had Marik not been literally choking on his words, Bakura would have thought he died. "What do you mean 'you'll pass'? You_never_ pass!" All signs of slurring were hereby gone which, for some reason, amused Bakura.

"I don't feel like it." He said simply before hanging up.

After plopping himself back onto the couch he decided that he wouldn't answer the phone for the rest of the day. He also decided that it would be smart to keep a sixpack of beer in the fridge at all times for emergencies such as his.

o0o0o0o

Lunch went by surprisingly fast, as did Ryou's math class. The teen's friends had chattered endlessly about things he didn't rightly care about and he managed to tune them out (it was rather easy seeing as they were pretty much ignoring him after finding out what happened to his eye).

He only had 40 minutes left in his math period and he hadn't even started on his three sheets of 'entire radicals and mixed radicals' yet. Math wasn't a hard subject for the teen, he just found it rather hard to concentrate (seeing as the teacher seemed to enjoy rambling about her pets, boyfriends, and other such things). The other students were always rather quiet due to the fact that most of them were listening to their discmans or other such music playing things so they didn't have to hear Mrs.K's ranting.

Mrs.K was a short, stalky woman. Her voice was high and rather shrill when she got excited. Her hands were adorned with rings of many sorts and her ears always hung low with extraordinarily large, multi-colored earrings. Her clothes were always printed with either flowers, stripes or polka dots and her makeup was so dramatic she resembled that of a clown. The classroom was no better and most definately suited the teacher. It often reeked of floral perfumes (sometimes lavender or jasmine) and gave Ryou a splitting headache.

Ryou shook his head slightly to return his focus back onto his work before starting on his papers. As expected, he finished in 30 minutes, which left an entire ten, boring minutes of hearing about 'Jacob' (said teacher's latest boyfriend) and his odd fetish with cheese. Those ten minutes dragged along for what felt like hours and the teen was more than relieved when the bell finally rang. His head was throbbing with the beginnings of a massive headache and all he wanted was to get out of the room and fast. Ryou all but ran out of the room, dodging randomly placed teens in the hallways, and to his locker. He threw his math supplies into his backpack and grabbed a sketchbook before walking as fast as he could to his Art class (which was thankfully being held outside).

Ryou's art teacher was tall and rather lanky. His skin was pale and fit nicely with his mop of raven black hair. His eyes were dark but somehow held a sort of... warmth. The art teacher didn't much like formalities and thus would rather be called Jace than Mr. Hall. None of the students argued for, despite the warm look in his eyes, he looked rather threatening when he was angry (The students found this out very quickly after deciding to switch varnish with super glue the first day of the semester).

"Today," Jace called in his smooth, dream-like voice, "We are going to try something new."

"Oh that's great, maybe we won't think about leaving then." one of the boys of the class said, laughing. The girls of the class giggled and started chatting amongst themselves about the boy's apparent 'hot' ness.

"Those who do not wish to be here may leave at any time, and accept a failing grade for the entire semester." The group of chattering girls silenced at once, while the boys continued to chortle. "With all seriousness, boys. I will fail you even if you don't leave unless you stop talking right now." Jace said, voice piercing the air with a stingingly cold tone. All raging hormones immediately settled to a dull roar, they were quiet and waited for instruction.

Ryou laughed quietly to himself before taking out his sketchbook and pencils. He watched Jace quietly, listening to the instruction carefully. The first option was to draw the first thing they saw, whether it be a bee or a weeping willow, or the person next to them. They were to draw it as they saw it.The second option was to draw the first thing they thought about. Girls immediately looked to their friends and began to randomly sketch some lines they thought was relevant to the anatomy of a human body. Ryou, on the other hand, decided the latter of the two choices, and had decided to draw the first thing he thought about. Strangely enough, the first thing he thought about was what to think about, and he couldn't very well draw that.

The teen took in a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. He would have to think about something _without_ thinking about it. Sounds odd but he understood his own instruction. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back slightly, pushing past the shrill giggles and the loud talking around him and tried to clear his mind.

_'I wonder if Bakura liked supper...' _He thought. He instantly cursed himself for the break of concentration. _'Clear your mind, Ryou!'_ he scolded mentally.

A hand was placed gently on the boy's shoulder. He jumped slightly and looked up, staring into dark eyes he instantly recognized as his teacher's. "Y-yes?" his voice sounded feeble, as per usual. Nothing new there. A smile spread across Jace's face.

"Having trouble deciding what to draw?" he asked, cocking his head to the side while looking at Ryou's blank page. Normally, Ryou would have sketched out a billion things; anywhere from Robins to trees to misshapen black forms looming under tavern doorways. It was a rareity the teen would ever be seen with a blank canvas.

Ryou nodded slightly, turning away. When Ryou had said nothing in return, Jace decided to go on.

"You know... sometimes is easier to try and _forget_ rather than to push past it." His voice was soft and held a somewhat knowledgable tone.

Ryou's stomach did a nasty flip, causing an instantaneous wave of nausea to course through him. "Excuse me...?" he asked softly, voice wavering the slightest bit.

He was answered with a mere chuckle. "Think about it Ryou."

Ryou watched his teacher walk to the other students before finally letting out a breath he hadn't realised was being held. His heart was beating wildly. Could he know? Could he possibly, by some miracle performed by Ra himself, know _exactly_ what was wrong with this teen's life? He shook the thought from his head. It was highly improbable, seeing as he talked to no one about it; Not even Yugi, who had made it a habit to pester the poor teen for information every time a new bruise formed.

The teen's worried expression faded only to be replaced by one of complete terror. He stood up, gripping his sketchbook close to his chest. "S-sir... I feel ill..." He didn't wait for an answer, nor did he wait to see if Jace had even heard him. He turned on his heel and literally ran to the bathroom, passing Tristan in the halls without so much as looking up. A delicate hand was clenched over his mouth as he bounded into one of the stalls and slammed the door shut and leaned over the toilet. He wasn't very pleased with the sight of his lunch and thus kept his eyes closed tightly as his stomach continued to clench disgustingly. The teen's whole body was trembling and he went to his knees, resting his head on his not-so-supportive arms.

A searing pain nestled itself in the pit of Ryou's stomach, threatening to make the teen throw up. Beads of sweat glistened across his face -which was way more pale than usual- though he was actually,quite alarmingly, cold. After a good twenty minutes of 'toilet-hugging', Ryou made an attempt at standing. He succeeded in the standing part, but he didn't know how long he would actually remain on his feet. He wrapped his arms around his stomach, taking baby-steps all the way out of the school. He didn't bother to go back to his locker for anything, he just wanted to get home. The teen settled on calling in sick later to excuse his absence. He definately didn't want to walk any more than neccessary at the moment, so a trip to the office could be avoided for now.

o0o0o0o

Of three things Yami Bakura was entirely sure: telephones were the most annoying things man could have ever invented, the remote obviously didn't work to well with a broken TV, and the curtains were definately the most repulsive shade of magenta he had ever seen. Deep violet eyes remained staring at the curtains, pale fingers still blindly fiddling with the remote. Okay, so maybe the breaking of the TV wasn't so smart... but at least he realised more subtle things in the house, such as the light above the couch being burnt out (and probably had been for quite a while). He was also well aware of the fact that his skull had decided to continue it's throbbing, hungover fit and definately still hurt like a bugger.

Bakura spared a glance at the telephone, which was currently sitting unplugged on the coffee table, and smirked. One of the most brilliant efforts of his day was to disconnect said phone before Marik drove him crazy. Well... crazy-_er_ in some aspects. In his mind, telephones were definately not supposed to be on the list of absolutely necessary household paraphernalia. Of course, since he had only chosen to disconnect said phone about an hour ago, he half expected Marik to bust through the door and attempt a flying leap-of-faith at said Bakura; simply to see if he was sick or not. Hopefully that wasn't the case, for said Yami wasn't currently in an ass-kicking mood. He was in more of a 'sit-on-one's-ass-all-day' mood and, truthfully, he had done just that.

It was then he realised he didn't know when his teenage 'vessel' would come home. He was obviously out drinking by the time said boy came home, and definately still in bed by the time he left. Then he got to wondering when Ryou would arrive, for he was getting rather hungry and most definately didn't want another run-in with the toaster. Ra knows he'd rather send that cursed thing to the shadow realm before trying to make any aquaintance with it again.

o0o0o0o

Ryou made his way through the alleys, walking as fast as his trembling body would let him. It took him twice as long to get home, a good 40 minutes give or take. He had gotten some rather strange looks, as he always did, but he assumed it was because of his eye. Said eye had seemingly become a becon without the teen's knowledge or permission.

He put his hand on the doorknob, fully intent on opening the door, only to find that it was locked. Now, that was strange... Bakura never locked the door when he left. Ryou shrugged it off and unlocked the door before stepping into the house. He headed straight for the kitchen, the one thing on his mind being a couple of advil, some water and an anti-nauseant before heading straight to bed.

The teen brushed some stray strands of hair out of his face before retrieving the advil and anti-nauseant pills from the cupboard. He placed them on the counter with trembling hands before filling a glass with tapwater. He took the advil without problem, it was the anti-nauseant he'd have to worry about. There was something about the chalky texture of the pill that made said teen gag every time, and he was rather reluctant to take it. He convinced himself that it was better to take it now and be done with it, seeing as he still had to make supper. A deep breath was taken before he threw said pill in his mouth, drowning it with water. As expected, there was a rather prominent dry-heave before the teen dropped to his knees, both hands gently clasped over his mouth.

Ryou sat on the floor, eyes closed and hands clasped over his mouth, for five minutes simply to make sure he wasn't going to throw up again.

Bakura leaned against the kitchen doorway, eyes fixed on the teen in front of him. Now, if he wasn't mistaken -which he _never_ was damnit- Ryou wasn't feeling the greatest at the moment. Of course it didn't take a genious to figure that out, but it was most definately unusal (seeing as Ryou never got sick, or at least never showed it when he was).

A smirk was firmly placed on the Yami's lips, eyes glinting in an utmost alluring way. "I doubt it's very comfortable down there, Hikari."

The teen's eyes widened, fear swirling deep within the chocolate brown depths. He spun around, eyes falling first on his definately sober yet rather hungover Yami. _Then_ he noticed -much to his dismay- the alluring, pale, bared torso his Yami was currently showing. "B-Bakura I didn't think you'd be home..." his voice was just barely over a whisper, for if he talked any louder he was sure he'd sound like death.

The smirk still played on Bakura's lips as he moved from his leaning position to walk slowly across the floor. Ryou's gaze seemed to be solidly placed on the ever-so-alluring chest of his Yami, which caused a faint blush to creep across his pale cheeks. It was only when his teeth decided to gently drag along his bottom lip that he realised what he was doing. He jumped slightly, his gaze throwing itself to the floor.

_' What am I doing...?'_

Bakura's stomach chose that time to growl rather loudly. "What's for supper, Hikari?" There was a moment of silence before Ryou responded. He could still feel the heat in his cheeks, the soft nagging in his stomach to look back up, but he promptly refused. He definately didn't feel like cooking...

"I was t-thinking of ordering pizza... is that alright, Bakura?" there was another moment of silence in which Ryou assumed his Yami was thinking.

"Whatever, just get it here. I'm starving." With that Bakura wandered back into the living room and flopped on the couch. "Oh, your phone's over here." Hm, quite the afterthought, but definately useful in the calling of said pizza place.

Ryou simply stared at the white linoleum floor, his stomach still doing sickening flips. When he finally decided to get up and bring the phone back into the kitchen, and rather wobbily done at that, he forced his eyes to remain on the ground. If there was anything he had to avoid, it was staring at his Yami like that again.

He called the pizza place and ordered three pizzas -Ra knows how hungry Bakura can get- and sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. He assumed Bakura would rather be alone, so it was best to grant him that wish. As he had thought, it was exactly what Bakura had wanted, for the Yami had made no move nor statement to suggest otherwise.

They sat in silence, waiting for the pizzas to arrive. Each of them noted different things; Ryou noticed how disgusting the ceiling was, Bakura noticed how much he hated broken T.V's. and they _both_ noticed how much they hated silence. Bakura would have even willed Marik to call, just so there'd be more noise than just a clock ticking in the background.

When the doorbell finally rang, Ryou went to pay for the food. He placed the pizza on the table, still not noticing said broken T.V, and allowed his hands to go to his aching stomach. "Supper's r-ready Bakura." he called. Only after hearing the grunt of aknowledgement, the teen went upstairs and to his bedroom, not bothering to strip down for bed.

He flopped onto the bed and stared at the closet, pointing out the many different shapes the paint made. Bakura hadn't been bad to him at all, except for the morning... but it was rather unsettling. However nice the lack of bruising was, he was rather worried about his Yami's health. At least when Bakura was drunk, the teen knew he was alright.

_'I hope he's not like this tomorrow...'_ and thus were his last thoughts before falling asleep.

* * *

Leave it to Ryou to worry about his Yami when he lacks his beating u.u anyway, I hope you guys like it. R&R and definately give me constructive criticism. No flames for stupid reasons kthx : D I know it's rather rushed near the end... at least I think it is... I might fix it later. Till then, this will suffice xD

TBC


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